


where did i go wrong?

by hellozombie



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Zombies, also one of my first Real adventures into angst (it wasnt fun), cant think of any other tags lel, i wrote this instead of doing homework, mild depictions of violence, mild descriptions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 08:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellozombie/pseuds/hellozombie
Summary: Reikos cannot help but wonder where he went wrong.Where had all his years of surviving alone lead him astray?He...what was he thinking about, again?
Relationships: Reikos Rubybane (OC) & Awoken (Friend's OC)
Kudos: 1





	where did i go wrong?

Even as his brain rots, and his skin peels away and falls from muscles and tendons, exposing the dead, oozing flesh of the recently turned zombie lord - Reikos cannot help but wonder where he went wrong. Where had all his years of surviving alone lead him astray? He...what was he thinking about, again?

The tiefling is losing more and more of himself every second he continues wandering the abandoned mansion, still wheezing out ragged breaths past his expiration date, his hooves still clicking against the floorboards; the only thing driving him to continue being the insatiable hunger for living flesh.

Where has everyone gone? The survivors, his fellow explorers? Was he alone again, now cursed to live out his last days - or perhaps even mere hours - as a flesh-hungry creature of the undead?

Surely, surely…

_Sniff, sniff...blink, blink_...he can hear distant voices he can hardly recognize anymore. The little one, and the crow man who nearly cost him his life...yes, them. He can’t remember their names anymore. He doesn’t remember what they look like. And he’s hungry.

With all the zombies he had conjured long already dead, he trudges forwards on his own, towards the voices - down a long flight of rickety, creaky stairs into a musty basement. Musty, like the rest of the abandoned, cursed mansion. What did he even come here for again? Did he even have a reason?

Reikos stands alone in the landing of the basement - a cross-shaped corridor that leads into four other rooms. Old, dusty, far beyond its years..._just like me_, he thinks, in a fleeting moment of clarity. A deep, ragged breath leaves him as he glances around, sniffing for even the smallest hint of the blood flowing between the people down here. His eyes land on the door farthest away from him, one with a grandfather clock next to it. It seems sturdy, like most of the doors, despite the rest of the mansion being in high disrepair.

Reikos lurches forwards, the door calling to his newfound instincts. The instinct to search only for food. He stops a few feet short of it, one long ear twitching as he hears footsteps approaching it. He stares with his dead, glazed over eyes, waiting for it to open. When have his instincts ever lead him wrong, even now?

It does open, and in walks the crow man - whose name he still cannot place - tall, frightening, but not nearly as intimidating to him now with his common sense dead. Cape dragging at his feet, and withered wings folded, the crow man stands before him. 

But the crow man doesn’t even hesitate before he lunges forward, sinking a knife into Reikos’s neck. Reikos doesn’t even flinch, merely just being knocked back slightly, hooves tumbling against the rug. Black blood seeps out from the wound slowly, in thick lines.

Reikos stands still, growling, baring his fangs to the tall raven man. He won’t lose the fight _this_ time, he knows it, _he feels it_. Reikos surges forward to the crow man, and the crow man jumps at him, too - the two men colliding halfway between themselves. Reikos digs his claws into the shoulders of the crow man, biting at the air from behind the forearm of the other man. 

The raven man’s features remain emotionless, as they always have been. Feathers falling from his wings, he stays still, while the tiefling still tries to bite him mindlessly. He pulls the knife from Reikos’s neck, then suddenly shoving him backwards, sending the tiefling stumbling again.

Reikos falls to the floor this time, unable to keep himself steady as hunger and revenge is the only thing clouding his mind. He hits the floorboards on his side, small drops of blood dripping onto them as his chest heaves with searing anger and starvation. He scratches the wood with his claws, and rises from the floor, wobbling.

And then, the door opens again. The little one this time, the brown tiefling, the...the _kid_. _How old was he_?

Reikos shakes his head, baring his fangs again.

“Dad!” the little one chirps, beginning to run towards Reikos, but he stops next to the crow man. “D— d-dad?” he notices everything wrong with the much older tiefling now, the blood, the missing patches of skin, the bleeding wounds, the cloudy, dead eyes. _That isn’t Reikos anymore_.

Reikos growls, taking heavy steps forwards, eyes fixated on the crow man. 

“Dad?” the small tiefling repeats, looking between the zombie and the crow man. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

Once he feels he’s close enough, Reikos jumps onto the crow man again. This time, the both of them stumble backwards - hitting the wall. Reikos bites at him much more furiously now, teeth making an audible clicking noise as they collide with each bite.

“D-dad, snap out of it!” the little one pulls on Reikos’s cloak.

Growling, snarling, Reikos looks down at him. He’s frightened, clearly. 

He...what was his name?...A...Wake?..._no, dammit_, Reikos thinks. It’s...his name is..._Awoken_. That’s it, that’s his name. 

“Dad, come on!” Awoken pulls on his cloak again. “You can do it! Snap out of it!”

_But why is he calling me dad? Is he my kid? When...when_...

Reikos blinks, snapping out of his clarity again and turning back to the crow man. He lunges his head forwards with all the strength his decomposing body can allow, fangs bared, ready to take a bite out of his neck.

But Reikos isn’t met with blood and meat - no, it’s something sharp, and hard, that clinks against his teeth, and digs into the roof of his mouth.

The knife sinks deep into his skull, piercing into his brain. Seconds later, Reikos collapses to the ground, anything that was left of him dying with that final wound.

Everything fades, going black, his consciousness slipping…

...But he remembers, for the last time, that Awoken _is_ his son, the one good thing that ever came out of him being _him_. _Where did he go wrong_?


End file.
